So let’s see, John Carroll beat Heidelberg, handily, and Wittenberg handled Wabash. Meanwhile, Hardin-Simmons delivered a reality check to Texas Lutheran and Wesley beat a D-I FCS team. (You know, the level known as Division I-AA.) Did John Carroll play its way into the playoffs? Or perhaps we should give them more than just lip service next week vs. Mount Union. Keith talks about what he saw when he watched the John Carroll-Heidelberg game.

Keith and Pat look at the remaining 10 automatic bids and what it will take to win them. Plus a long look at Pool B and another long look at Pool C. That and more in this week’s podcast.

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your phone or portable device.

Pat: (at 59:37 mark) Gallaudet clinches the conference title, we’ve been talking about them for a while. As I mentioned, they were my pick for most surprising playoff entrant. They’re ranked third in the regional rankings. Keith, you and I have been to that stadium and I’m not sure that that stadium is really someplace that might host a playoff game, so I’m not sure where exactly Gallaudet might play in the first round, or who they might play. They might end up playing somebody where the matchup is fairly decent for them, the question being where. But really, you know from being a member of the Washington media … boy that sounds bad! … the Washington sports media, you know how big a story that’s been this year.

Keith: Yeah. It’s gotten quite a bit of publicity outside D-III circles. It’s an obvious built-in storyline, with not only the folks from Gallaudet being deaf and hard-of-hearing, but also a program that fluctuated between club status and varsity status through the years that we’ve been doing this, Pat. Then the storyline we talked about a few weeks ago, where they don’t play anybody from the D.C. area. Their games are all up in New York and Vermont and Massachusetts. They do that to be in a conference and it’s a conference they had the opportunity to win. They clinched a bid on Saturday and they’re going to go to the postseason. To be quite honest, it reminds me quite a lot of the scenario with SUNY-Maritime a few years ago, where they were really good during the season, they went through that (conference) and won it and got handled real well in the first round. I’d like to see what kind of matchup Gallaudet gets in the first round, what do they do? That could be the type of team that goes to Hampden-Sydney and Randolph-Macon in the first round, although those teams would probably be on the road as well. Someone else, maybe Johns Hopkins, somebody else that will be at home in that region and maybe have a chance for them to bring a lot of their fans and watch them play close to home. Pat, you mentioned the publicity this week — Yahoo, USA Today was on it, the Washington Post wrote about it a couple weeks ago, it was on the morning news here in D.C. That story’s gotten a lot of attention and rightfully so, and it can only get better from here if they continue to win.

Pat: It really is actually a lot like that year SUNY-Maritime ran the table. They were the three-seed, they couldn’t host because their now-deposed athletic director did not put in to host that game. They ended up having to go to Alfred in a 3-6 game and Alfred had their way wth them, shall we say, in winning that game. At the very least, Gallaudet comes into this game, wherever that is, and their final regular season game, having played the University of Rochester, having played Shenandoah, middle-of-the-pack teams in middle-of-the-pack conferences, which I think is more than we could have said about SUNY-Maritime when they made their run through the season a few years ago.

As the committee prepares for Sunday’s Announcement Show, it should be noted that UW-Platteville defeated UW-OshKosh (eliminating them from postseason consideration), and Redlands earned the SC automatic bid. Linfield wins the NWC and PLU’s only loss comes at the hands of the Linfield Wildcats.

PLU, with a strength of schedule consideration and defeat of SC Redlands, it is highly unlikely PLU should not be included in the playoffs. With the D3 pools usual limited distance playoff travel, either Linfield will host Redlands or PLU will travel to Redlands. If PLU travels to Redlands, Linfield will host a lower seed at-large entry or lower rated conference winner.

Thanks to the national D3 committee to allow the Far West to show itself as an annual threat to compete strongly in the D3 playoffs. Linfield and PLU could meet in the quarters or semis if allowed to not always be put head-to-head against each other after the 1st week of D3 playoffs. Historically, both PLU & Linfield were both national champions of the NAIA II and the rivalry has long existed where they go deep into national playoffs if committee members give them a chance without eliminating each other in the 2nd round.

plurocks and should be in the 2013 NCAA 3 playoffs with their only loss to Linfield in a fierce regular season battle.